Obadiah

I was looking back at my blog and realized I pretty much only blog at Christmas. And then my last post was Half Christmas! 

Goodness...that's a lot of Christmas.... I swear we do other things too!

The thing is, we didn't have internet for a LONG time at our new house... but now we do! and now I need to get back in the habit of blogging again.

I thought I'd start with the kids' birthdays because those are my favorite times... I love looking back and seeing how they have grown.

I usually let the kids plan their own birthdays and pick their own theme. They always come up with such creative ideas. 

Obadiah had been telling me since his LAST birthday what he wanted for his 5th birthday.

I kept thinking he'd change his mind but he never did.

 He wanted a beach themed birthday for his 5th party.

From the week after his 4th birthday he'd been telling me he wanted a crab shaped cake.

 He also wanted pineapples and other beach themed food.

 He's a very science loving boy and he was very happy about the solar powered robot kit his daddy got him.

Also, at the time, William was working a weird shift and didn't get home till late at night. But that also meant he didn't leave till later in the morning. Naturally that meant CAKE FOR BREAKFAST!

After William went to work the kids and I had a scavenger hunt.

I drew them clues that took them all over the property and ended in the back of my car where there was a treasure box full of chocolate chip cookies.

Because pirates like beaches, therefore a beach themed party should half a treasure hunt!

I just love how excited this boy is about his solar powered robot. 

Obi loves robots and he loves building robots.

 Nana came over at lunch time and brought us a special treat of sushi!

Obi loves sushi and since it was a beach themed day sushi seemed perfect.

Margaret loves sushi too.

I'm not sure why, but for some reason Obi really wanted protective gear for his bike.  He's got such a huge head it took us a long time to find a helmet that would fit him but was still fun. I think we ended up getting him a helmet for a 14 year old. 

Then we rode bikes!

All the kids are getting really good on their bikes and so much more confident.

The weekend before his birthday we took Obi to pick put his very own brand new bike.

We live in the country with no side walks and a gravel driveway so the kids ride in circles in the work shop.  We also take them into Nashville sometimes and let them ride at one of the parks there.

 Papa sent Obi a pair of work pants over alls. Obi was very proud of them.

He loves being like Papa.

William's parents sent Obi Magnetic building tiles.

Every kid needs these things! 

The kids have played with these every day since the day we go them. I think there was just one day they didn't play with them and that was because I took them away because they were never picked up.

These things are seriously fun.

Here's a link to where to buy them. 

I'm linking to the big kit because you can build more villages, and castles and spaceships with more tiles.

Obi had a very fun birthday. He's growing up so fast. He says he didn't like being four but that five is his favorite so far. 

Right now he's wearing size 7/8 clothes and his pants NEVER stay up.

He loves suspenders and bow ties and hats.

He loves building with blocks and he LOVES sticks. 

There are sticks all over the yard!

He loves the name George and names everything George.

He named his chicken George.

Yes she's a hen.

He also named his favorite rock George and at least one stick.

His favorite cuddle buddy at the moment is his little snake "Snakey" and his "baby wookie"

I don't know what the wookie's name is ... it's probably George.

He tucks it on at night in a little bed he made for him.

The kids just watched Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back on Father's day and Obi declared it "The best movie ever!"

His favorite TV show is Rescue Bots... because he likes robots.

He's a caring and sweet boy and he's a wild and silly boy.

He loves taking ballet class and the other night we watched a ballet performance on PBS because he wanted to see "the boys dance"

He also wants to be "the good guy" like the Nutcracker Prince and he wants to "rescue people, like a super hero"

He's currently down stairs taking apart an old radio that doesn't work anymore and he can hear him exclaiming with excitement that "it has a circuit board!!"

He loves science and he says he wants to be an engineer when he grows up so he can build rocket ships and play with circuit boards.

He's my sweet Obadiah.

Happy Half Christmas

One of my favorite things about being Catholic are all the extra Feast Days to celebrate different people of faith throughout history.

I especially love the Nativity of St. John the Baptist.

Which is on June 24th and marks six months till Christmas!

So naturally we get the Christmas tree down and have a Half Christmas party!

The kids love decorating for Half Christmas. They choose what ornaments they want to use. They put the bows on the tree and they work really hard to cleaning up the living room.

They are adorable little Elves.

They also love planning their outfits and wearing their christmas t shirts.

(This is why it's important to have Christmas t shirts!)

Don't get me wrong. I love Summer too. And with Half Christmas being in June is a great time of year to get together with friends and do summery things.... while celebrating Christmas too!

 This year we roasted hot dogs over a fire and had a hot dog building station on the porch.

It always helps to invite responsible adult people to help with the roasting of the hot dogs and marshmallows.

Of course we also have Christmas cookies and everything you need to decorate a Christmas cookie.

I made mostly Christmas shapes but I did made butterflies and sharks too.

Really it's just an excuse to have fun people come to my house. 

And have lots of great food.

Joanie even came all the way from Nashville for our Christmas party.

Because it is a Christmas party there needs to be Christmas gifts. 

Luckily for me, I always have lots of Christmas wrapping paper.

(I buy it after real Christmas, on sale)

This year everyone got dance ribbons and water guns.

This was Margaret's first water gun and boy was she happy about it.

She ran around shooting everyone shouting "shoot shoot"

Our friends even brought us gifts! 

Actually, with Christmas being so hectic last year we didn't see our friends around Christmas time. So she saved our gifts for Half Christmas! Brilliant!

I think my favorite part of the day was when everyone went out on the front lawn and played with their dance ribbons. That made me so happy and it was so fun and lovely to watch.

Here is one of Rosie's cookies she decorated. 

Also, if you get marshmallow fluff and a kitchen torch (the kind you use for creme brûlée) you can have toasted marshmallow on top of cookie!!

It's amazing. Especially if your sugar cookies aren't too sweet.

 Obi was a huge fan of the marshmallow fluff

 Rosie was very creative about decorating her cookies. 

I made so many that the kids decorated all weekend long.

Margaret is proudly showing me her half eaten cookie.

I even got the Christmas dishes out!

Happy Half Christmas everyone.

This is our favorite way to keep Christmas in our hearts "all the year long" like Scrooge and Tiny Tim taught us to.

How do you keep the magic of Christmas alive?

Have a great Summer!

Brave Rosie

Rosie broke her arm on June 1st.

 She was a very brave little girl in the hospital, and a silly little girl once they gave her the funny medicine.

Two weeks after her first cast we went back to the Children's Hospital and she got a new, very pretty 

cast. She got to pick any color she wanted. So she chose pink and purple.

On the last day of June we all went back to the Children's Hospital to get her cast off.

Obi thought the noise canceling head phones were great.

They give the head phones to kids who don't like the noise of the cast cutting machine. 

It sounds like a loud vacuums cleaner.

The children's hospital is amazing and they do everything to make the kids comfortable and to make being there fun.

After Rosie got her cast off we watched the train set in the lobby and explored the shops and food court on the second floor. 

Rosie said the Children's hospital was the Disney World of Hospitals and even though she doesn't want to break her arm again... if we do have to go to the doctor for something again, she wants to make sure we come here.

Obi just wants to come and hang out. 

Margaret loves the train.

It took a long time to get out of the lobby.

Rosie is very happy to have her cast off.

Her elbow is still very stiff and we try and stretch it every night. She doesn't have full range of motion yet but I think she will soon. 

I'm so proud of my brave little girl.

"I only smile for Santa"

Obi is very serious about taking pictures

I asked him why he wouldn't smile for me and said he only smiles for Santa ...

So I asked him to pretend I was Santa...

At least the boy has standards.
And really good taste.

School Has Started 2016 -- Fall Semester

School has started! 
We started a couple of weeks ago (as you do in Tennessee).
 I kept waiting till our hair was done and we were each properly dressed to take this picture. 
But I guess that's just not us. 

Obi and Rosie we're excited about their new "school clothes" and Margaret was just happy to be wearing Obi's shirt. 
She wants to be just like him. 

My babies are growing up so fast and I have to remind myself to stop and enjoy every quirky little moment.

Oscars 2016

This is the first year since we've been back in the states (5 years now) that we haven't had a formal Oscars party.  

We did however have a quiet celebration with popcorn, pizza, chips and black eyed peas salsa and a pretty powerful sangria. 

It wasn't a big fancy night but it was fun. I listened to a pod cast about the nominations earlier in the day and followed along with my score sheet for most of the show.  

I have a couple movies I'd like to rent now. Especially The Martian. 

I thought Chris Rock did a good job ( but he's no Ellen). 

Mostly I just enjoyed the celebration of film making and movies. 

Did you watch the Oscars this year? 

Last Liturgical Day of Christmas

Got all the kids on the picture on this the last liturgical day of Christmas. 

Today we celebrate the baptism of Christ and talked about our own baptisms with the kids. 

We listen to Christmas music one last time and then tomorrow we move into "Ordanay Time". Rosie calls it "green time" because the priest wears green. It's a time of growing in our love and faith and understanding in Christ. 

Also. It's one month till Ash Wednesday ! Why is this year going to fast already!?

Happy Christmas lovely people.

12 Days of Christmas: Day 12 - Epiphany!

Happy Twelveth Day of Christmas! 

Happy Kings Day! 

Happy Epiphany! 

Today around the world we celebrate the arrival of the Magi, Wise men, or Kings arriving at the house of the Baby Jesus and bringing him gifts.

This is a very big holiday in some parts of the world like Mexico, Spain, most of the Spanish speaking world and Italy.

The kids and I had so much fun watching little clips of different celebrations from around the world on SnapChat. 

Yes. I said SnapChat.

I know it sounds crazy but there was this little button that you could click on and it showed you lots of little clips of people around the world celebrating.

We saw parades.

Mass with Wisemen coming down the aisle to bring gifts.

KINGS CAKE! 

We are totally making Kings cake next year.

There were also some fun clips on Instagram and Twitter if you check out the hashtag #Epiphany.

Make the technology work for you and make it fun.

The kids really enjoyed watching it all.

There was one clip from Spanish Harlem and Rosie was excited that "Hey! They are speaking our language."

Many Catholics around the world do a house blessing on Epiphany.

All you need for this house blessing is:

The Blessing (I printed mine from HolyHeros.com)

Some Holy Water

and blessed chalk 

(I'm sure regular chalk would work too, but it's so much more fun asking your priest to bless a piece of chalk. I keep mine in my jewelry box and reuse it every year)

Then you get everyone together... say a little prayer and blessing and write

20+C+M+B+16

above your door

The 20 and the 16 are for the current year and the letters C, M and B stand for 

Christus Mansionem Benedicat, which is Latin for "May Christ bless this home."

 They are also the initials for the traditional names of the three wisemen.

Balthasar of Arabia, Melchior of Persia, and Gaspar of India.

(Traditional. Not factual. We don't actually know their names.  But these are fun to say).

Balthasar is our favorite... we just like saying it.

Obi is the official Holy Water distributor. 

He splashed it all over the door.

In many parts of the world children leave their shoes under the tree and receive a gift from the Kings as they pass by on their way to Bethlehem to see Jesus. We didn't do the shoes this year but there was a gift under the tree! Obi was very excited to discover it.

It was a 3D puzzle that we can all do together this weekend.

Rosie declared the Kings must be still alive.

I tried to explain traditions and that weren't but I was out voted. 

"Nope. I think they're still alive. That's more fun. "

 I've always loved Kings Day.

 I love that one last day of gifts before the Christmas season comes to a close.

Also, I didn't realize this until I became Catholic but the Kings or Magi were the first non Jewish people to honor Jesus and so they represent God's gift of mercy to the whole world.

I thought I'd share a couple pictures of our nativity. The kids had fun setting it up and decided the nutcrackers should be there to guard the baby Jesus.

Thank you so much for celebrating the entire month of December and the 12 Days of Christmas with me. I enjoyed blogging again.

I hope you have a wonderful year and that the joy and peace of Christmas is in your heart and home all year long.

Merry Christmas!!